Space

NASA's rover Opportunity is getting smarter through software.

Celebrating its seventh year investigating the surface of the Red Planet, Opportunity is now able to make its own choices about which rocks it should investigate further and which ones it should leave alone, according to a NASA report on Tuesday.

Thanks to a new software upload, Opportunity's computer can analyze the photos taken with its wide-angle camera and isolate rocks that meet specific criteria. It can then determine whether specific rocks are worthy of close-up shots through its narrow-angle, color-filtered camera.

The new software called Autonomous Exploration for Gathering … Read more

The U.K. has launched a national space agency dedicated to coordinating its involvement in civilian spaceflight, with responsibility for overseeing policy and budgets.

The agency, which officially begins work April 1, will negotiate on the U.K.'s behalf with international bodies. In addition, it will take over responsibility for some key U.K. and European space projects, including Galileo, the U.K. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said in a statement Tuesday.

The U.K. Space Agency has been set up to help spur growth in the British space and satellite industry, which employs 68,000 workers … Read more

Outgoing space station commander Jeffrey Williams and Soyuz commander Maxim Suraev settled to a jarring touchdown in "blizzard-like" conditions in Kazakhstan Thursday after an apparently trouble-free descent from the International Space Station.

Suraev, strapped into the Soyuz descent module's center seat, monitored a computer-controlled 4-minute and 16-second rocket firing at 6:33 a.m. EDT, slowing the ship by about 257 mph to drop it out of orbit.

Just before falling into the discernible atmosphere around 7 a.m., the Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft's three modules separated at an altitude of 87 miles and the central descent … Read more

An exercise in taking yourself out of, well, yourself is to follow William Shatner on Twitter.

It's not merely that he tries to end each of his tweets with the touching personalized sign-off, "My best, Bill." It's that Twitter.com/William Shatner is so darned revelatory.

A few days ago, the Kirk with the smirk offered this tweet: "Help us build www.MYOUTERSPACE.com to be the best that it can! Your feedback is priceless; you don't want to miss this. My best, Bill."

Good Lord, I thought. Has the captain bought himself … Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--Deep, deep in the reaches of outerspace, there is a star factory. Astronomers have theorized about its appearance, though they've never had a realistic view of it.

Until now.

Last year, the space shuttle Atlantis launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida en route to a very special mission: NASA'S last-ditch attempt to repair the Hubble Space Telescope before it was too late to salvage humankind's greatest tool for peering at the mysteries in the farthest parts of the sky.

In the new film, "IMAX: Hubble 3D," viewers are treated to the riches … Read more

NASA scientists reported Monday night that the space agency has discovered as much as 1.3 trillion pounds of ice on the moon, a finding that indicates future lunar visitors could have a wealth of water waiting for them.

The new data was found using a NASA radar placed on board India's Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. The ice was located in more than 40 craters, which vary in size from one mile to nine miles wide. All are located near the moon's north pole. All told, it is thought that there may be 600 million cubic meters of ice in … Read more

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--For Rob Nail, Saturday was a bonanza of opportunity.

Over dinner that night in building 20 at the NASA Ames Research Center here, Nail found himself discussing 3D printing and housing with X Prize CEO Peter Diamandis. Already, Nail had been considering buying some farming land in Northern California and had been interested in the nascent concept of 3D printed buildings. He told Diamandis that he wanted to try that on the land.

"He says," Nail recalled, "I want to make this introduction," and grabbed Nail, pulling him a few tables over to … Read more

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla.--The shuttle Endeavour came out of the night sky Sunday to make a spectral landing at the Kennedy Space Center, leaving the International Space Station behind in orbit virtually complete, with a new life support module and an observation deck for robot arm operators.

Approaching the spaceport in a steep dive, commander George Zamka guided the shuttle through a sweeping left overhead turn, lined up on runway 15 and swooped to a picture-perfect touchdown at 10:20 p.m. EST. Pilot Terry Virts then released a red-and-white braking parachute and a few moments later, the space … Read more

The space shuttle Endeavour undocked from the International Space Station Friday, leaving behind a new habitation module and observation deck that virtually complete the U.S. segment of the lab complex after more than 11 years of construction.

With pilot Terry Virts at the controls, Endeavour pulled directly away from the station's forward docking port at 7:54 p.m. EST after nine days of joint activity.

"Zambo, it's been good having you, sorry to see you guys leave," station flight engineer Timothy Creamer radioed to shuttle commander George Zamka. "We'll watch and wave.&… Read more